WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following are highlights from a U.S. House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on Thursday delving into BP's role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The hearing marks BP <:BP.LO:>Chief Executive Tony Hayward's first appearance before Congress, where he is facing U.S. lawmakers' wrath. Hayward will try to spread the blame for the April 20 rig explosion and the massive oil spill.
LATEST QUOTES
REPRESENTATIVE GENE GREEN - DEMOCRAT
"You should take responsibility for the workers who did nothing wrong and now they're losing their jobs."
HAYWARD OPENING REMARKS
"The explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico never should have happened, and I am deeply sorry that it did."
"I want to acknowledge the questions that you and the public are rightly asking. How could this happen? How damaging is the spill to the environment? Why is it taking so long to stop the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf? We don't yet have all the answers to these important questions. But I hear and understand the concerns, frustrations and anger being voiced across the country."
"We said all along that we would pay these costs. And now the American people can be confident that our word is good."
"Less than 24 hours after the accident, I commissioned a nonprivileged investigation. I did it because I want to know what happened, and I want to share the results. Right now, it's simply too early to say what caused the incident."
"I give my pledge as the leader of BP that we will not rest until we make this right. We're a strong company and no resources will be spared. We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event and emerge stronger, smarter and safer."
EARLIER QUOTES
REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN - FULL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
"BP cut corner after corner to save a million dollars here and a few hours or days there. And now the whole Gulf is paying the price."
He added there was no evidence Hayward paid attention to the "tremendous risks" BP was taking. "We have reviewed 30,000 pages of documents from BP, including your e-mails. There is not a single e-mail that shows you paid even the slightest attention to the dangers at this well."
Waxman said an e-mail from BP's operations drilling engineer, who oversaw BP's team of drilling engineers, showed the firm's corporate attitude. Waxman said after learning of the risks and BP's decision to ignore them, he wrote "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."
REPRESENTATIVE JOE BARTON - FULL COMMITTEE TOP REPUBLICAN
"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, a $20 billion (13.5 billion pound) shakedown."
"I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologise."
REPRESENTATIVE BART STUPAK - SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
"We have learned that time and time again BP officials had warning signs that this was -- as one employee put it -- 'a nightmare well.' They made choices that set safety aside in exchange for cost-cutting and time-saving decisions."
Stupak said BP disregarded questionable results from pressure tests after cementing the well and selected the riskier of the two options for their well design, among other decisions where it cut corners to save time and money.
He noted that Halliburton warned BP they could have a "severe gas flow problem" if they lowered the final string of casing with only six centralizers instead of the 21 Halliburton recommended. BP rejected it in an April 16 email, saying: "It will take 10 hours to install them ... I do not like this."
BP had a "cavalier attitude towards assessing risk," something that was unbelievable given previous accidents at North Slope and Texas City Refinery, Stupak said.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DINGELL - DEMOCRAT
"BP has a history of cutting corners for the almighty dollar."
THIS ITEM WILL BE UPDATED
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
